


a lack of color

by feux



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Angst, M/M, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26594878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feux/pseuds/feux
Summary: It wasn’t like in the stories.It wasn’t like an explosion, not like my gravity center shifted nor any of those cheesy romance cliches. It was a tiny thing, I was just there, and he smiled to me across a sea of people, and something changed. A splash of something new starting at the stranger’s eyes and slowly dripping down his coat.Throughout my whole life, everything in the world was colored in shades of gray. But his eyes, they weren’t. And that’s how I knew.(Or where Frank brought color to Gerard's life, and now that he's gone, everything is slowly fading to gray.)
Relationships: Frank Iero/Gerard Way
Comments: 10
Kudos: 20





	a lack of color

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mvni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mvni/gifts).



It wasn’t like in the stories.

It wasn’t like an explosion, not like my gravity center shifted nor any of those cheesy romance cliches. It was a tiny thing, I was just there, and he smiled to me across a sea of people, and something changed. A splash of something new starting at the stranger’s eyes and slowly dripping down his coat.

Throughout my whole life, everything in the world was colored in shades of gray. But his eyes, they weren’t. And that’s how I knew.

[…]

I’ve heard about color before, of course. My mom and  my younger brother tried their best to explain them to me by matching them with  flavors and sounds and feelings. I knew blue as the sky, as the feeling of  riding roller coasters, the taste of cotton candy, and the fresh winter wind on  my face. Red was strawberries and heat and winning an especially hard game, and the taste of blood in my mouth every time some boy from school punched me in t he face.

The colors fascinated me. I felt them, even though I couldn’t see them. And that’s why I ended up becoming an artist. Not a successful one, though, just good enough to get a scholarship on a mildly decent art school, not so much that mom didn’t worry I’d starve to death with a useless degree. I used my colorblindness in my art, using whatever color seemed more appropriate based on what my loved ones told me they felt like, and that never failed to get a reaction.

Most people in the world have a soulmate, and everyone who has a soulmate experienced something similar at some point in their life. So, most people saw the clashing colors in my art as a reflection of their feelings.

I knew that someday I’d meet someone and everything would become blindingly colorful. But, until then, that was enough.

[…]

His eyes didn’t feel like strawberries or wind, nor anything like that. They felt like smoke and honey and all of those late eighties’ songs about British misery Mikey loved to listen. His skin seemed warm and soft like an old sweater, and I wanted to touch him so badly it hurt. He stood out like a sore thumb amongst the sea of black-and-white people in the hallway; like a drawing someone forgot to fill up.

I chased after him, and barely got a grasp of his sleeve before he turned and vanished off my field of vision. I needed to ask about the color of his eyes and his name, and if he also felt something different when his eyes met mine.

He turned to me, kind of surprised, not smiling this time.

“Can I ask a weird question?” He just nodded in response, kind of confused. “Your eyes. What color are they?”

At that, he smiled. Stained teeth and chapped mouth and cigarette breath, making my heart skip so many beats I didn’t know how I didn’t die right then and there.

“Do you wanna grab a coffee?” He asked. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

[…]

I always thought my gray world was a misfortune. Not  being able to see any kind of color before I met my soulmate seemed like  the worst thing as an artist. But, of course, it wasn’t the only trait possible:  some people couldn’t hear until they’ve heard their soulmate, some people  couldn’t feel until their soulmate touched them. 

Frank, for example, couldn’t taste anything. Everything felt the same on his mouth, nothing was sweet, nothing was bitter. And that, somehow, felt worse than anything I went through.

He learned to appreciate the texture of food, the temperature, the smell. Just as I learned to differentiate darker colors from lighter ones by the intensity of their grayness. Everyone has to adapt in case they never find their soulmate – it’s common enough to be worrisome.

Or in the case said soulmate dies.

[…]

Frank ordered a milkshake, I ordered a cup of coffee.

The flowers on the table had a pretty tint to them, I could almost see the  color through the layer of gray that still covered most things. I asked him,  then:

“Which color are these?” 

“They’re lavender.” He kept his eyes in me while he spoke. “Do you know what color are your  eyes?”

“Mom said they’re green, like grass, but only at the end of summer, right before fall.” It’s weird talking about my own eyes, and the way I talk about color usually freaks people out, but Frank seems mostly unbothered. “What about you?”

“Hazel, I guess, or green, it depends on the light.” He shrugs. “But mostly hazel, like chamomile tea.”

“I didn’t know the color of your eyes could change  with the light, that’s so cool!” I can hear the excitement in my own voice, and  it’s kind of pathetic. “Your eyes are very pretty.”

The barista calls us as soon as those words leave my  mouth, almost like the universe is trying to keep me from embarrassing myself  any further. He sips his drink and makes a face, like something very unexpected  happened.

“That’s very strong.” He says, smiling. “Can I try yours ?”

I let him take a sip and he almost instantly spits it  out. “ _ My soulmate hates coffee.”  _ I think, horrified. 

_ I have a soulmate.  _ And that’s simultaneously  the best and the scariest thing that ever happened to me.

[…]

We tried to take it slow, going on dates and trying  not to act weird every time we stumbled on each other around campus. Frank  majored in music, and his classes were usually in other buildings across the  campus, but somehow, I always found him luring around whatever classroom I was  in or at the restaurant whenever I was having lunch. There was something  pulling us towards each other, and there was no good in fighting it.

Mikey loved Frank, mostly because he’d let him drink when we went out together and Mikey really liked all the noisy punk bars he’d take us. Frank wasn’t in one band, he was in five, and my younger brother was the biggest fan of each one of them. 

I used Mikey as an excuse to go to all of his shows  because I loved to see him on stage. All the red lights and the sweat and his  voice ringing in my ears like something solid, he felt so  _ alive  _ up  there that it made me feel alive too. Even while we were taking it slow, even  before we kissed for the first time, I couldn’t see my life without Frank.

He would play only for me, too. Usually on weekday  nights, somewhere on the rooftops of the living quarters, with only a guitar  and a couple of cigarettes. I was never big on music before I met him, but he  made everything sound so unique and special I wanted to listen to him all the  time.

And I loved him. And it all felt like the end of the  world.

[…]

I still remember the day, just before his birthday. It was raining a lot and Frank was staying the weekend at his parent’s house a few towns over. I was mulling over a painting, complaining to my roommate about how the colors didn’t seem right, when he called.

“Hey, Gee,” His voice sounded different on the phone, richer, somehow, more raspy and lower, like everything he was saying was a secret. “so, my mom made this very cool soup she used to make all the time when I was younger and it kind of tasted like nothing. I don’t know if I’m sick or she’s just a terrible cook, but I have a feeling it’s because you’re so far away from me. Do you feel it, too? Like your stretched? Thinning around the edges? Like everything is just shittier? I always thought having a soulmate would be the worst. Being bound to someone forever like that. And it kind of is, but it's awesome at the same time – because you’re awesome. And I feel like you understand my music in ways no one else can, and just thinking about you calms me down and I know I can be too much at times but…”

He paused. I could hear my own breathing echoing through his room.

“But I can find excuses to be away from you anymore.” 

We moved in together shortly after that, to a small but cozy one-bedroom apartment not too close to campus, but near the subway and the small coffee shop I worked at. We adopted a dog, and then a cat, and we both graduated from college around the same time.

I spent my nights tracing his tattoos with the tip of my fingers, engraving everything about him in my memory in ways only an artist could. I got used to all of his colors, and he got used to all of my flavors. It was the closest to heaven I’d ever be.

[…]

I don’t really remember our last days, though.

The only memories I have are about being too sick to leave my bed and Frank continuously apologizing for having to leave me there. He had a show in New York and some important people were coming, he couldn’t let the band down like that. He kissed me on the lips before he left, not scared of his weak immune system or his voice being affected by my germs. His lip ring felt chilly against my feverish skin, but his mouth was the same.

“I love you. I’ll be back before you even realize I’m gone.”

Frank left, and I stayed in bed watching Lord of the rings with Mikey. I remember complaining about the color-coding of the wizards and going to sleep mad at the world.

I woke up in the middle of the night, feeling like my heart was being torn apart. Mikey came running, worried, with the dog by his ankles.

“What happened, Gee?” He screamed, turning all of the lights in the house on.

“I don’t know.” I said, quietly, even though I could already see the colors fading at the edges.

[…]

I never knew how Frank died; it didn’t matter to me. 

He was gone now, and I was sentenced to live in a world without color and without him, and that was just  _ so  _ unfair. There was so much we didn’t do, so many things we didn’t get to see… I wanted to know how his hair would look when it started to go grey and to map his laughter lines once they became impossible to hide, I wanted to tattoo his name above my heart and hear him laughing about my fear of needles. I wanted a small house close to the sea, and children’s names, and another dog.

But, above it all, I wished I never met him. I cursed his eyes and all the colors they brought me; the only thing worst than a grey world is to see everything losing color – the only thing worst than never falling in love is to have loved and lost.

His funeral came and went, and I stayed inside. I filled our apartment walls with pictures of him and used them to paint him everywhere I could. Every empty sketchbook, every white canvas, even his old denim jacket. I never want to forget it, even if it hurts, even if it breaks me.

The last color I ever saw was a shade of hazel, like chamomile tea, and honey and smoke. The color of Frank Iero’s eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> hey! sorry if this sounds rushed, it's just an old plot and I really, really suck at writing. I'm sorry for any mistakes also, English isn't my first language and I'm trying my best. But I hope anyone who stumbled into it enjoyed it or at least was mildly entertained 
> 
> (especially you, max, I wrote it just for you)
> 
> thank you for reading :)))))


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